Taliban parade coffins draped in UK and US flags as they celebrate 'independence day'
The 'mock funerals' for NATO powers pushes the narrative that the Taliban have emerged victorious after 20 years of conflict
By Roland Oliphant and Suddaf Chaudry KABUL | Telegraph
Taliban supporters fired automatic weapons into the air and paraded coffins draped in the Union Jack and the Stars and Stripes through the streets of Afghan cities as they claimed victory in the 20 year war with Nato powers.
America’s war ended with a seamless but muted midnight exit as the US 82nd Airborne division passed control of Hamid Karzai International airport to the Taliban’s special forces.
But almost as soon as the last American C-17 transport aircraft left the tarmac, mayhem broke out.
For a full five hours, automatic weapons, AK 47s and heavy tracer fire clattered into the night sky as Taliban fighters celebrated victory on what they described as their own independence day.
"Congratulations to Afghanistan. This victory belongs to us all," said Zabibullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman who presides over an unofficial interim administration in Kabul, said on a victory tour of the deserted airport on Tuesday morning.
“Afghanistan is a free nation,” he added.
Taliban commandos, carrying American weapons and sporting the same beard-and-sunglasses look favoured by the US special forces they fought for so long, picked their way through abandoned hangers to inspect the spoils of victory.
Inside they found dozens of abandoned vehicles and aircraft including Chinook helicopters and Super Tucano ground attack aircraft. Some fighters in traditional garb clambered into cockpits for selfies.
American military officials insisted all trophies - which included 70 mine resistant vehicles, 27 Humvees, and 73 aircraft - were worthless, having been disabled or destroyed in the run-up to the evacuation. The last items destroyed were the CRAM anti-missile batteries, blown up in the final moments before the last aircraft left.
A crowd carries makeshift coffins draped in NATO's, U.S. and a Union Jack flags during a pretend funeral on a street in Khost, Afghanistan |CREDIT: ZHMAN TV via REUTERS /ZHMAN TV
Large celebrations were held in several cities later in the day, particularly in the group’s traditional strongholds in the south.
In Kandahar, the spiritual birthplace of the Taliban and Afghanistan’s second largest city, jubilant supporters of the group took to the streets in their thousands to celebrate victory.
In the southeastern city of Khost, a heartland of the Taliban-aligned Haqqani Network, all-male crowds carried coffins with the British, American, French and Nato flags through the city centre.
Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada, who the group confirmed has already arrived in Kandahar from exile, is expected to make his first ever public appearance shortly did not emerge on Tuesday.
Taliban sources said he had finally made decisions about the formation of a new government following several days of internal consultations.
The triumph on display in Kandahar was far from universal, however.
As the sun rose over Kabul and the celebratory firing slowed, a few men sat at a bench beside Wazir Akbar Khan hill discussing how this new dawn of Taliban may be even bloodier than its rule in the 1990s.
Nor, they predicted, had they seen the back of America. “They will be back, they can’t help themselves,” said one.
Who runs the Taliban?
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DescriDeputy leader of the Taliban and an overseer of combat against Western forces in Afghanistan. Leader of the Haqqani network, a subset of the Taliban organisation with close ties to Al-Qaeda. Admitted responsibility for the 2008 bombing of Kabul's Serena Hotel, which killed six people, and plotting to assassinate Hamid Karzai, the then Afghan president.ption text goes here
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The son of Mullah Omar, the one-eyed spiritual leader of the Taliban, who died in 2013. Now heads the group's military commission, in charge of field commanders. Enjoys considerable status thanks to his father's name. Seen as a unifying figure in a movement where fighters are often bound by blood ties and marriage.
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The Taliban’s main international spokesman. Fluent in English. Edited the Kabul Times, the government run English-language newspaper, during Taliban rule in the 1990s. Has promised in recent days that Afghanistan will have an “open, inclusive Islamic government” under its return to Taliban rule.
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Former Taliban governor of the western Afghan city of Herat. Spent 12 years as a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay, before being one of five Taliban prisoners released in a controversial exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, a kidnapped US soldier. Since appointed to the Taliban negotiating team in Qatar.
In the city centre stores began to open, street vendors set up shop, and traffic began to fill the streets as the city returned to the new, slightly fearful normal that has settled in since the Taliban take over two weeks ago.
“No” said the owner of a once busy suitcase shop when asked if he was celebrating. “Now that the airport is no longer in the hands of the Americans there are no more evacuation flights, business will be slow. Soon people will start to be financially unstable, then who knows.”
Both men and women moved quickly, making sure to spend as little time as possible between the car and the shops.
Women were present on the streets, but few if any without a male chaperone. All refused to comment on the Taliban victory, and it was only men who would articulate what the change in power means for women.
“My sister can’t go to university as there aren’t enough female professors, so she has to remain at home,” said Ali, a student queuing with dozens of others at one of few working cash machines. "She was crying all night during the supposed celebrations last night. the gunfire is here to stay”.
Others are frightened both for their physical safety and the Taliban’s plans for their livelihoods.
“I did not sleep last night, the guns firing all night. My father is in hiding. He worked in the air force for the government,” said Hamid, the owner for a small video production company. “I built this business from scratch but if the Taliban end entertainment and do not allow us to film weddings, then we will have no option but to also leave”.
A man addresses the crowd at the mock funeral in Khost |CREDIT: ZHMAN TV /ZHMAN TV via REUTERS
He turned back to editing a package on the computer screen, his hand shaking from fatigue and stress.
Kabul’s teenagers, who were not even born when the 20 year war began, seemed unbothered by the uncertainty. “Lets see what these bearded old men can do, hopefully they can move quickly in their flip flops,” laughed one group who hung around smoking near a florist shop.
Back at the airport, Mr Mujahid maintained the same conciliatory line he has pushed since the Taliban came to power, insisting the group wanted reconciliation with the West and that Taliban forces to be “gentle” and respect civilians.
"We want to have good relations with the US and the world. We welcome good diplomatic relations with them all," he told a gaggle of reporters on the deserted runway. “You are free to go and take a look inside the hangars,” he added, gesturing left and right at abandoned aircraft.
He was joined by Anas Haqqani, the brother of the head of the Taliban-linked Haqqani Network, at the airport, hugging and holding hands with others present.
Haqqani spent four years as a prisoner of the Americans and was a negotiator at the Qatar talks, but has received a cool reception from Taliban leaders since he returned to Kabul and is not part of Zabiullah’s unofficial administration.
His appearance at the airport will be read partly as a calculated political gambit - making sure of his presence at the historic moment of victory in order to strengthen his hand in forthcoming haggling for power within the new regime.
For the moment, he allowed himself to bask in victory.
“When I was in jail I never thought this moment would come, but here we are,” he said. “I never gave up, today we are free and happy in Afghanistan.”